From 10 to 12 May 2011, the “Southern Africa Power Pool (SAPP) / Southern African Development Community (SADC) workshop on PCB Management and Phase-out in the SADC region” was held in Johannesburg, South Africa. This expert workshop was organised by the Secretariat of the Stockholm Convention, the Africa Institute (a Basel and Stockholm Convention Regional Centre), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Southern Africa Power Pool (SAPP), thanks to the financial contribution from the Norwegian government.
Eleven countries from the SADC region participated in the workshop, mostly through national utilities, and thus members of the SAPP organization, and relevant sector ministries.
The objectives of the workshop were to:
- Provide SAPP representatives with PCB management training, in particular on environmentally sound management of oil transformers during maintenance activities in order to avoid cross-contamination;
- Develop workplan for the drafting of PCB management guidelines for SAPP;
- Identify specific needs of workers in SAPP and develop workplan for the preparation of training materials and organization of training courses, and;
- Introduce the PEN on POPs Social and assist SAPP representatives to make use of it.
In addition, the idea of a regional Full-Sized Project (FSP), to be partially funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), aiming at PCB management and phase-put in the region, was presented. Participants agreed on the need for such a project, after presenting activities in their individual utilities and countries.
An ambitious workplan was adopted, including decentralized training of personnel in transformer maintenance facilities. |